Strep

It came on so fast. She was fine when we went to bed on Sunday night but when she joined me in my bed at 4am on Monday morning; Olivia was burning with a fever. Her hands, her feet, her skin was fiery hot.

I gave her some ibuprofen and water and we tried to sleep a little more.

When we got up at 6, I took her temperature. It registered 101.4. I settled her in the recliner with Tom, set the timer for three hours and told him to give her children’s Tylenol when the timer went off and then ibuprofen three hours after that in hopes of getting the fever down and keeping it down.

I went to work and worried all day long.

At 3:00, Tom called me and asked if I could meet them at the local Urgent Care at 4:00. He was brining Olivia in. Her fever had spiked to 103 at that point.

When I got to Urgent Care, Tom and the girls were already there. Olivia cried when she saw me, either in relief that I was there or just because she hurt. She told me she was weak and that she hurt all over.

I carried her into the office, noticed how flipping cold the room was and asked Alyssa to go to the car and get the blanket we keep out there. We settled onto a couple of armless chairs so that Olivia could lay with her head on my lap, the blanket covering her shivering body.

While we waited (and waited and waited) for our turn with the doctor, I noted that O’s breath was really bad. Like, sick bad.

It was finally our turn. I carried O back to the scale where she was weighed and then we found our way to the examination room. She was grateful to lay on the table available for exams. There was a pillow and her blanket kept her warmish in spite of her fever.

The nurse took her temp, her bp and her pulse. The doctor arrived and checked O’s ears, which were clear.

Olivia told he doctor that she hurt all over. The doctor had O put one knee and then the other to her (Olivia’s) forehead, explaining that kids with encephalitis can’t do that due to stiffness in the neck.

Then the doctor looked in Olivia’s throat. At that point, she put her pen down and said, “I don’t even need to do a swab. She’s got strep. Even if we swabbed her throat, it could come back negative and I’d still give you the same prescription for antibiotics and lots of fluids.”

We were told to keep her hydrated and watch her closely for the next few days, that if she doesn’t show marked improvement, we’re to take her back to either our regular doctor or to Urgent Care for further evaluation.

As of this morning, after two doses of Amoxicillin, she was already feeling better. The achiness seems to have abated and while she was feverish at 2am, after a dose of ibuprofen, as of 7am, the fever was being held back.

So we’re wait and watch and yes, we’ll baby her because Olivia is an easy child to baby. Even Alyssa babies her, though she wouldn’t be happy that I’m telling the entire world that.

Olivia asked a few times why she was so sick and how she got sick. I reminded her of the busy weekend we’d just had, all the new people we’d met and all the people who wanted to hug her. She managed to shrug off a lot of those hugs but there were a few kids there who were bigger and more determined to hug than Olivia was not to be hugged. Who knows where the bug came from? All we can do is fight it now that it’s here.